Two basic approaches have been used in the past to obtain high production rates in the commercial hanking and packaging of precut lengths of insulated wire and other relatively flexible materials. The first involves a multi-station turret type of machine which is loaded and performs a winding operation at one station (or between the first and second station), a fastening operation at a second station and ejection of the finished package at a third station. In this technique, several winding heads are mounted on a rotatable turret. The turret indexes and stops at each station, dwelling long enough to allow an already wound and fastened package to be ejected at the third station while another wound cord is fastened at the second station and a fresh cord is being loaded and wound at the first station. It is apparent that this technique allows various operations to be performed simultaneously on different cords at different stations, thereby yielding maximum production rates.
The second approach to obtain optimum production rates with a simpler and less expensive machine which is quickly adjustable to accommodate a very wide range of package configurations is detailed in the Hanscom U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,770,183, 3,480,219 and 3,480,220. In this technique, a single winding station and a single fastening station are affixed to a basic machine frame. An automatic hand is used to transfer the package from the winding to the fastening station which hand simply picks up the wound bundle, transfers and deposits it at the fastening station, and returns for the next transfer cycle. This approach obviously allows simultaneous loading and winding, transfer, fastening, and ejection operations and is therefore very efficient. The simplicity of the machine makes it relatively inexpensive and widely adjustable.